The Importance of Free Throws
When a team loses a close game, many times one of the primary reasons is missed free throws. The Dallas Mavericks Analytics Department* elected to subjectively define a close game as every game where the two competing teams were within 3 points of each other with one minute or less to play in the fourth quarter. In all NBA regular season and playoff games from 2012 to 2017, those close games occurred the following number of times:
| NBA Regular seasons | Games | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
|
2012-13 |
393 of 1,229 |
32% |
|
2013-14 |
391 of 1,230 |
31.8% |
|
2014-15 |
390 of 1,230 |
31.7% |
|
2015-16 |
389 of 1,230 |
31.6% |
|
2016-17 |
370 of 1,230 |
30.1% |
|
Average |
1,933 of 6,149 |
31.4% |
| NBA Playoffs | Games | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
|
2012-13 |
26 of 85 |
30.7% |
|
2013-14 |
35 of 89 |
39.3% |
|
2014-15 |
26 of 81 |
32.1% |
|
2015-16 |
26 of 86 |
29.1% |
|
2016-17 |
19 of 79 |
24.0% |
|
Average |
132 of 420 |
31.4% |
An unusually high percentage of close games occurred in the 2010-11 season, the year the Mavericks won the NBA Championship. In the playoffs that year, 34 of the 81 playoff games were close (42%). Also, free throws became more important as the teams progressed, with 24% in round two, 40% in round three and 50% in the NBA finals. In that Championship year, the Dallas Mavericks shot 77.7% in the regular season and 80.9% in the playoffs.
The 2015-2017 NCAA Division I college games were also analyzed. There was an even higher percentage of close games at the college level, and those calculations don’t take into account the fact that many of the missed free throws were the first on a 1 and 1 scoring opportunity.
| NCAA Regular seasons | Games | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
|
2015-16 |
1,682 of 5,149 |
32.7% |
|
2016-17 |
1,725 of 5,338 |
32.3% |
|
Average |
3,407 of 10,487 |
32.5% |
| NCAA tournament | Games | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
|
2015-16 |
54 of 143 |
37.8% |
|
2016-17 |
42 of 138 |
30.4% |
|
Average |
96 of 281 |
34.2% |
